Beanie Sigel Acquitted

Beanie Sigel was acquitted of attempted murder today in a Philadelphia courtroom. The rapper was facing a retrial for allegedly shooting a man two years ago outside a strip club on a crowded Philadelphia street. The three-day proceedings took place just a few weeks after Sigel was released from federal prison for drug and firearms possession.

The thirty-one-year-old rapper, born Dwight Grant, was released from the Philadelphia correctional facility after serving eight months of his year-long sentence, stemming from a 2002 traffic stop.

"Only fools or people who got caught are in jail," Sigel told Rolling Stone before beginning his prison term. "Take that to heart. If you can learn what not to do from me, then I'm good with that."

Named after South Philly's Sigel Street, the rapper first appeared in 1998 on Jay-Z's Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life followed by his 1999 debut The Truth. He released his third album, The B.Coming, in March, while incarcerated.

The rapper's previous attempted murder trial, held in April 2004, was declared a mistrial when jurors failed to reach a verdict. He faces another trial for allegedly breaking a man's eye socket during a January 2003 argument.

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Song Stories

“Helen Wheels”

Paul McCartney | 1973

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"

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